Apps, apps and more apps. That's the way this tiny world works! Thanks to my wonderful student Valentina for introducing me to this app! But this app, although they should keep developing it to improve on a few things, is bringing up a great idea to the table: personalized language exchanges through our phones. Basically, you sign up, you fill out which your native language is and which languages you are interested in and start your learning experience.Immersion is a very effective way of learning languages. Today is way easier to travel to the target country and give yourself a first-hand experience to push your language learning ability, but at the same time we live in an over-connected world, thanks to Internet, so we should consider to get into virtualimmersion. Advantages: cheaper, convenient, it builds your social sense of exchange things with others...Hello Talk is a great opportunity to have a native speaker on the other side of the phone. The app will count the exchange time automatically, so you do not have to worry about fairness and accountability ;)The app allows you to write a 500 characters text.Keep it simple: 5 minutes in your native language, 5 minutes in the language you are learning and vary your friends to have a wider picture of the variety of the language you are studying.As every on-line tool it also has disadvantages. This one is a kind of social network, so always be careful with the type of information you give to your co-learner. A good advice for this would be: think like you'd be in the real world. Don't give anybody any information you wouldn't give to anybody in your real life.Get Hello Talk here!

How many times were you surfing the net searching the IB Profile in Spanish? I can count a few on my side...Simple, just plain text to use it to create/edit your own documents for your class ;)Learn the IB Profile in Spanish here with Quizlet

It's always hard to start a conversation, to reply to a question... That's why we all should work on this prompts with our students in Spanish. They are basically chunks of language, but very transportable chunks, very movable. They can fit in a lot of contexts and there it is where resides their power.Many of my students told me they just go blank at the beginning of a conversation. Once they have started everything goes smoother but sometimes it's really hard to get the ball rolling. This might be a great tool to use in this type of situations.

There are thousands of "useful verbs lists" online. A good first question could be: Are they really useful? YES! Of course, but that depends more on how you use those lists.One of the first things to consider can be what to do with these kinds of lists.I like to begin with activities that involve several skills. For instance, have your students choose 4 or 6 verbs and sketch the meaning of it. No translations, just pictures. This allow our students understand the power of visuals. It is really easier for them to understand things with an image than a translation.I assume verb conjugations are not fun, and if you are not determined to memorize them some students can get to think it's boring. So I always consider "games" to practice conjugations in my class. For example Battleship:Sequence

Students each receive two papers with 20 x 20 grids.

The rows and columns on the grid are labeled with letters for the rows and numbers for the columns.

On one of the grids, each places five ships – one that covers five spaces, one four, two three, and one two. This grid shows the placement of their own ships and should remain hidden from the other player.

Once both players have placed their ships, play begins.

The first player guesses a grid location (ex. B-5).

If the other player has that square colored in, he/she says “Tocado” (and the guesser colors in the block on the second grid page). If the square is blank, he/she says “Agua” (and the guesser puts an X in the square). If a player has guessed all of the squares for a ship, the other player says “Tocado y hundido” because that ship has been sunk.

The other player then takes a turn guessing a location.

The first player to sink all five of the other player’s ships wins.

Tip: Diversify your verbs as much as you can and pleaseeeee, avoid overusing:hacer, tener, pensar, querer.

Introduce the language and the cultural component through writers, philosophers... from the Spanish-speaking world.If you are teaching an IB course a good idea could be to identify the IBLP in characters in books.

We are here today to share some thoughts about what to do and what not to
do when choosing a topic for an oral presentation:

This is a collaborative document! If you have any ideas/suggestions to incorporate to it, please, leave a comment! Thanks a million!To have this type of conversations and/or analysis with our students is really important. They really want to be an active part of their education and they want to know what to do and what not to and why.Definitely, to get our students involved in these conversations help them engage in the class. They kind of change their perspective on your class becoming ours/theirs.

Do:

Don't:

üConsider a topic that really
interests you (yes, YOU!) and goes well with your personality/identity

This is a crucial point, we
are all different and we all have different interests, so something that
works for your best friend doesn't have to work for you.

üThink of a theme that enables
you to learn about an aspect of the target language or culture (our case,
Spanish)

For example: not all topics
will enable you to learn a lot about every language or culture. It will
depend on the target language/culture.

üChoose an open-ended topic
that encourages you to express lots of opinions

This will let you raise
additional questions and info.

üTake into consideration a
topic that offers the potential for complex thoughts

Higher-order thinking is a
high value.

üWhen making your choice
consider a topic you'll be able to research quite easily

So you can focus on
important transferable ideas & language skills.

üBegin with a stimulus (a
song, a picture, a painting...) as this helps you stay on track

üPlace the stimulus within a
social/cultural/historical/political/artistic context

It will help you understand
(and others) the topic deeply.

üBrainstorm your first ideas
and limit the range of your research

üSet down some questions about
your presentation and try to answer them

This will help you to
anticipate some questions you might have during your Q/A session.

üPractice with your friends,
family, neighbors… (better if you can practice with a native)

But PRACTICE don't bombard them 24 hours a day ;)

üChoose a topic is easy for
you to break it down in different pieces.

Make an outline of each one
and practice separately. Finally, put all your pieces together.

ØBe too ambitious (if you
choose something you know nothing about, you may end up wasting a lot of
time).

You want to be challenged
but not over challenged

ØPick something too difficult,
we don't want anxiety and/or stress!

Again, give yourself a break, we are working on developing your
language skills.

ØSelect clichés or
stereotypical topics like bull fighting or flamenco, unless you have
something quite original to say.

It might be quite uninteresting for your audience

ØChoose something so unknown
you can't find any information about it

You want something you don’t
have to make a huge effort to find information about.

ØRelate/Narrate someone's biography

It sounds like rehearsed and
it's definitely boring. If you want to score highly you might want to
take your audience into consideration

ØDo all your research in a
different language (English?) and then just translate it all (it won't sound
authentic)

It won't sound natural.
Remember the importance of thinking in sentences and ideas.

ØUse Google Translator

It won't sound authentic and
you will get lucky if your presentation makes sense. Give yourself a chance,
you might know more than Google!

ØLeave it to the last minute!!!

Unless your goal is to have
a zero to show yourself you can also handle really low scores ;)

Hi there!Google is a box full of surprises. They never let you down. I just discover this new app for Chrome or Android. The concept is so simple, it reads out loud websites. There are several languages available and Spanish is one of them! Nice!To be honest I have to say that intonation and rhythm are not that authentic but it really helps beginners to listen the target language at home or somewhere else using their phones. The only accent available in Spanish is castilian...still waiting for more variety! It reads out loud SMS, MMS, Gmail, and much Google apps like Twidroyd or Plume.The way the app displays the text highlighting the piece it reading is very educational and intuitive.Follow directions for installation procedure:

Two heads are better than one.This is a link to a live and collaborative documentwhere you can find tons of activities to develop the IB Learner Profile in your classes.If you are an IB teacher this is your opportunity to contribute with the IB community and/or find interesting activities to introduce your students/parents/staff to these key concepts.If you have any ideas you think might help us feel free to leave a comment with your activity or click on the link to make your contribution directly through Google Drive (a Google account is required)A big thank & hug to everyone participating in this collaborative project.IB Learner Profile activites: a collaborative document

About the author

Hi there! I am Antonio Luna, a Pro student and passionate teacher. I think happiness should be the power leading our schools and I work for it. I have a lot of experience working within the IB. I have experience in the MYP & DP, but also have been working in the PYP as a support Spanish teacher.